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Use of bidirectional electrolyte flow to improve PECM uniformity

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Abstract

Non-uniform machining in the pulsed electrical chemical machining (PECM) of an anode surface is a consequence of unidirectional electrolyte flow through the inter-electrode gap (IEG). As it traverses across an anode surface, the electrolyte accumulates ohmic heat, which in turn increases electrolyte conductivity and anodic dissolution. This leads to a dissolution gradient along the flow path and consequently anode surface geometric error. This research investigates the use of the bidirectional electrolyte flow to homogenize the time-averaged temperature and time-averaged dissolution across the IEG. A comparison of data derived from unidirectional flow PECM experiments and bidirectional flow PECM experiments show that bidirectional flow can reduce anode geometric error by a factor of 17 along a 98.7-mm flow path. Furthermore, this can be done without the loss of machining efficiency. Multi-physics simulation analyses of these processes show that bidirectional flow does effectively homogenize time-averaged temperature, current density, and dissolution rate.

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Funding

This Project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (grant number 1060162- 440826) with additional financial and technical support provided by Extrude Hone LLC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Penn State University, 310 Leonhard Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Zexi Zhang, Edward De Meter & Saurabh Basu

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  1. Zexi Zhang
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  2. Edward De Meter
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  3. Saurabh Basu
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Contributions

Zexi Zhang: term, conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft; Edward De Meter: writing—review and editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition; Saurabh Basu: writing—review and editing, project administration, funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Zexi Zhang.

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Zhang, Z., De Meter, E. & Basu, S. Use of bidirectional electrolyte flow to improve PECM uniformity. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 127, 2843–2859 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11695-5

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